Guidance on philanthropic funding of media and news

As nonprofit funding of news grows, what are the best practices for ensuring editorial independence?

The following two sets of broad guidelines of best practices, one for funders and another for nonprofit media organizations, are the product of more than two years of work exploring the question.

That work began with surveys of funders, nonprofit media outlets and commercial media outlets on what their current practices are, described in “Charting new ground: The ethical terrain of nonprofit journalism,” which the American Press Institute released in April 2016. This work was funded by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

In October 2016, we gathered 18 funders, nonprofit media executives and scholars who are engaged in this world. Each group created a rough draft of key guiding principles, which the other group commented on in a full-room discussion. In the weeks since we have worked to refine the language with the feedback from both groups.

The guidelines come issued in the name of API. Informed by all our conversations, they do not necessarily carry the stamp of approval, in full, of an individual organization whose perspective or employee’s perspective was shared within the process. But we do hope they carry their wisdom.

We invite media organizations or funders to contact us about how they used or adapted these principles in their own work.